


Future Friends

by Jensee



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man/Deadpool - Joe Kelly (Comics)
Genre: Coming Out, Future Self Drama, Mental Health Issues, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 21:16:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20180851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jensee/pseuds/Jensee
Summary: Faced with his future, Peter has to confront something he's always put off.You have all the time in the world, until you don't.





	Future Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this with a slingshot between reading two comics and trying to finish my RQ bang fic. It's not betaed as of yet (I'll come around to it) so you can absoluetely be mean about mispellings and such.
> 
> I did Not Have any good idea for a title, so please excuse me while I take a song title (Future Friends by Superfruit, which, as far as I know, has nothing to do with this fic)
> 
> For context, this takes place somewhere in between the 35th and 36th issue of Spider-Man/Deadpool the comic, but you haven't read those (youre valid) you can basically just read it as Peter Parker meets his future self, who is best friend with Deadpool.
> 
> Enjoy! <3

“Did you tell him?”

Peter knows his future self won’t answer, knows this is spoilers for his future, and he doesn’t get to skip the line. But he can’t not ask. Even if the old Peter doesn’t answer, doesn’t say anything, he can’t let this chance go, not when he might never know, not when his future is both so solid and so uncertain.

Peter Parker doesn’t seem surprised either; he has to have expected that question. If he’s really the future Peter Parker - and that has been well-established – he has to know what has been going through his head at every turn, every time Deadpool shows some compassion or morals, and every time he turns right back around and leaves Spiderman stranded for three days.

“Peter…”

“I know you can’t tell me what happens, or anything, but that doesn’t change much, right? If I don’t even know what he says, what _does_ happen. I just- _should_ I tell him? Is it even- you know.”

Peter forces himself to take deep breath, and to push down a panic that has nothing to do with the very physical representation of the brevity of his existence.

“Peter.” The old Spiderman sighs, and it is oh so strange to see a very old man and know he will be you at some point. “Wade Wilson is my best friend. He is not stable. Or safe, for others or for _himself, _and he never will be. I love him very deeply but despite everything, he is still very fragile, and he’s had to suffer a lot more that we can even really imagine.”

“You didn’t tell him, did you?” Peter feels an unreasonable anger rise up in his throat, laced with a wet, heavy feeling. “Why didn’t you tell him?”

“You _know_ why, Peter.”

Peter has to look away. He feels inexplicably choked up as he imagine his future stretching out before him, an endless moment of failed occasion, of shameful fear, of quiet resignation.

“He gets better, though, doesn’t he? He- I mean-”

“That depends what you mean by better. He’s not as murdery if that’s what you mean. But I don’t think he gets better.”

It’s his future self’s turn to look away.

“You can’t _fix_ Wade, Peter. In lots of ways, he _never_ gets better. It’s not your fault. It’s not even Wade’s fault. There are just some things you can’t fix, that you shouldn’t try to, really. But that doesn’t mean you can’t be his friend.”

“But you still didn’t tell him.”

Peter is a coward.

But then again, hasn’t he always been?

“I’m old, Peter. I’ve _been_ old. It’s too late for me, and I can’t go back. You’re the only one that can change this future.”

The future version of Peter doesn’t wait for him to process the fury of feeling that have been unleashed in his chest, and starts wheeling his chair forward. Peter - the present Peter, himself, the one he is, right here, right now, who has ample time before he becomes this man – takes a moment to collect himself, to breath his emotions away before he catches up again.

“For what it’s worth,” says the old Peter Parker right before he’s thrown back into his time, “I think you should tell him.”

He disappears into a flash of light and Peter’s ears ring with the echo of his last words.

“I’d like to see what that looks like.”

Everything goes back to normal. Or as close to normal as it ever gets when you get bitten by a radioactive spider at fifteen.

Deadpool is, for some reason, lounging on a scaffolding high up over the city, contemplating the scenery when Peter finds him. Wade salutes him with the usual quips and the rambling monologues that may or may not be a confession to robbing a bank. Whatever, capitalism is the true evil.

“Hey… Wade?” says Peter at some point, interrupting Wade’s description of the teddy bear of a little girl he saved from certain, soda related death.

“Yeah, Spider-bro, spider-pal, spider my spider, my-“

“I-“ Peter chokes on the familiar fear, an Wade raises his eyebrows. He’s the man who despite everything, still tries to be good for Peter. The man who nearly destroyed time to save his life, to save himself from being the reason his best friend is dead; the reason Peter is dead. He looks at the city and wonders how it looked in a future where Deadpool didn’t care as much, didn’t _try _as much.

And maybe Deadpool is doomed to fail. Maybe he has, so many times. But he still tries.

Peter owns it to him to try as well.

“I have to tell you something.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I have stuff to do, but comics are really such a great inspiration for fanfic somehow? So this isn't the last of me. Might even fuck around and make a series of short comic fanfics.
> 
> BTW, if you're wondering, I was thinking that Peter either has a huge confused crush on Deadpool, or just that he is coming out to him. I read it as both, you can read it as either, etc.


End file.
